not escape murmurs and evil interpretations. (7) How much less then can
other monarchs avoid them! (8) Yet such unlimited power, if it exists at
all, must belong to a monarch, and least of all to a democracy, where the
whole or a great part of the people wield authority collectively. (9) This
is a fact which I think everyone can explain for himself.

(20:10) However unlimited, therefore, the power of a sovereign may be,
however implicitly it is trusted as the exponent of law and religion, it can
never prevent men from forming judgments according to their intellect, or
being influenced by any given emotion. (11) It is true that it has the right
to treat as enemies all men whose opinions do not, on all subjects, entirely
coincide with its own; but we are not discussing its strict rights, but its
proper course of action. (12) I grant that it has the right to rule in the
most violent manner, and to put citizens to death for very trivial causes,
but no one supposes it can do this with the approval of sound judgment. (13)
Nay, inasmuch as such things cannot be done without extreme peril to itself,
we may even deny that it has the absolute power to do them, or,
consequently, the absolute right; for the rights of the sovereign are
limited by his power.

[20:2] (14) Since, therefore, no one can abdicate his freedom of judgment
and feeling; since every man is by indefeasible natural right the master of
his own thoughts, it follows that men thinking in diverse and contradictory
fashions, cannot, without disastrous results, be compelled to speak only
according to the dictates of the supreme power. (15) Not even the most
experienced, to say nothing of the multitude, know how to keep silence. (16)
Men's common failing is to confide their plans to others, though there be
need for secrecy, so that a government would be most harsh which deprived
the individual of his freedom of saying and teaching what he thought; and
would be moderate if such freedom were granted. (17) Still we cannot deny